The recent announcement of scientists that ‘a large portion of Antarctica has began to collapse and it is the largest and most catastrophic Antarctic cleaving to date-taken as a sign that extreme changes to the global environment are inevitable, danger for Bangladesh and its people is more imminent than ever before because the rising of sea level has expedited.One thirds of the country’s landmass will submerge and 40 million people will become ‘climate refugee’ if the oceanic water level rises by one meter due to Antarctic cleaving, the scientists predicted. “The Bangladeshis, who have been facing the greatest calamity although the country is literally half a world away from western Antarctica,” the scientists said, adding that 40-million people will loss their homes and livelihood due to climatic consequences of ice melting in Antarctica. “Climate change predictions are a different matter entirely. The risk is not overpopulation, but rather myriad adverse changes induced by rising temperatures and global changes. The combined risk of rising sea levels, droughts, and chaotic storms lands the country at number one on the global Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI). The impact may soon provoke the violent social breakdown long feared,” noted environmentalist Prof Dr Syed Hashmi told The New Nation on Sunday.The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)-1992, or whether funding should come from other sources and in 2009 developed countries, who are responsible for the climatic erosion, in UN Global Climate Summit committed to raising US$100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer countries cope with global warming, but funding levels currently languish around the U$10 billion a year mark. The global climate investment raised to US$ 359 billion in 2012, according to a lates UN report. Four countries-Bangladesh, the Maldives, Netherlands and Philippines-who will get most hit by the global climate change. The Netherlands erected a massive wall by shore of ocean, while Maldives started filling sands on its atolls to raise the land mass three meters high 2020. The Philippines has already brought about massive changes in construction engineering so that this country could absorb the climatic hit. However, Bangladesh is still far behind from the global on going programs. The country’s geography makes environmental vulnerability inescapable. Bangladesh is a delta, a massive drain for three mighty rivers that flow through the Indian subcontinent (the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna), for the Himalayan glacial melt, and for the area’s annual monsoon rains. Indeed, annual flooding helps to restore the nutrient-rich soil on which the country’s agricultural self-sufficiency depends. But the waterlogged land loses 18-75 per cent of its area to temporary flooding each year- which kills some 5,000 Bangladeshis annually, causes homelessness for many more, and disrupts the lives of the rural-dwelling majority. Rising waters will mean losing habitable land.”And the water will rise. The announcement of Antarctic continental fracturing included a prediction of a three-meter sea level rise within the next century. Just one meter of sea level rise-a rise now forecast as inevitable within current lifetimes-will displace millions of Bangladeshis from their land. It would be sufficient to reduce Bangladesh’s landmass by 17.5 per cent, according to a recent scientific study,” internationally reputed environmentalist Dr Atique Rahman said.”The loss of the Sundarbans will remove a natural barrier to storm surges – just as the world begins to experience increases in chaotic weather. Already the most cyclone-vulnerable country in the world, Bangladesh faces a near-certainty of catastrophic storms,” he said.He said,”The sea level rise will also force seawater inland, contaminating Bangladesh’s water table and leaving some coastal areas without potable water. Changes in weather are also likely to exacerbate droughts in the northeast. Overall, climate change is set to test communal resilience and force Bangladesh’s people off a significant portion of rural land and into cities.” Nonetheless, migration is unmistakable. Dhaka, the country’s capital, has experienced a population explosion. Migrants arrive from other areas of Bangladesh at a rate of 400,000 per year – one of the fastest growth rates of any city in Asia. The capital has swollen from four million in 1980s to 12 million within a few years and already ranked the second least livable city in the world for its severe overcrowding, Dhaka will hold an additional 25 million people by 2050. Migrants far outstrip the city’s ability to accommodate them.
